I am often asked to describe the artmaking process for my work. It usually begins with a personal experience of "place", as is certainly the case for the constructed painting above, Presence: Enter.

For the past 5 summers I've spent time in solitary retreat at Nada, a Carmelite Monastery at the base of the Sangre De Cristo Mountains near Crestone, Colorado. My weeks there include beautiful hikes into the mountains where I carry a sketchbook journal and my camera.

Presence: Enter began as I hiked the North Crestone Trail a few summers ago where I found this beautiful little place that was filled with late afternoon light. It reminded me of places where I played as a small child, so out came the sketch journal.

It began as a line drawing in my journal using a micron pen. This process is a meditation of sorts, allowing the pen to move as I respond to the sense of place before me. In this case, I took photos and then added watercolors to the study afterward. In general, this seems to work better for me than attempting to do watercolors in the field, which I find to be an unwieldy process.

Along with creating watercolor studies and photos, I developed a digital image using Photoshop. It's quite exciting to be able to try variations of an idea in order to discover the most dynamic image. I consider these archival prints to be finished works of art in themselves. This particular digital image was then scaled up and used as a guide for the large constructed painting on layers of plexiglas.

The following images show the progression from the digital image to the constructed painting.

Leave a Reply.

Author

Bonny Stauffer lives in Prescott, Arizona. She integrates digital and traditional processes in her work. Bonny spends long periods of time drawing on location in order to explore new expressions of her love for the earth.